Hello family :)
I hope everyone finds themselves well on this
wonderful day. So, we have a few new developments in our area! We
found an awesome family this week—and a couple of other good investigators too.
But, I´ll just tell you quickly about the family, and ask for your
prayers on their behalf. So, until now, we only had the chance to talk
with the dad (but we´re going to have a lesson with them tonight and he told us
that his wife and his kids would be available as well this time). I think
he´s about the same age as Mom and Dad. His name is Antonio, and he´s one
of the coolest people I´ve met here. The first time we met him, he
invited us in and showed us around his house/property. He´s got a HUGE
yard, which is awesome because most people here don´t have much of a yard.
He´s got like 60 rabbits, 14 doves, 3 squirrels, and
some guinea pigs in the mix of rabbits. And when we came back
to teach him the first lesson, he had cooked us a rabbit. And it was
delicious. But anyway, afterwards we explained to him about our purpose
in being here. Most people around here think that we just "give
studies", so we always clarify what we really do. We explained to
him that we´re here to help him come closer to our Father in Heaven by coming
to know that our message comes directly from Him, and then making sacred
covenants with Him, such as baptism. He told us, "Everyone around
here is Catholic. But we don´t really have any certainty about whether
it´s really true or not. I´d like to have that certainty in my
life." So, we left him a pamphlet about the Plan of Salvation and
asked him to read it with his wife, and then pray about it together to know if
what it contains is true. And, he said he would. So, we´re really
excited to go back tonight.
I don´t have anything else to share, so I just
want to bear my testimony. I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that God
lives and that He loves us. He "so loved the world that He sent His
Only Begotten Son" (John 3:16), knowing that He would be "despised
and rejected of man" (Isaiah 53:3), but knowing that without an Atonement,
all mankind would perish (Alma 34:9), He sent His Beloved Son, hoping that we
would love and accept Him here below so that we could lay hold upon salvation.
I know that our Savior loves us as well, and that in every way He
performed perfectly the duty that our Father in Heaven sent Him forth to do. He established His Church, and with everything necessary to bring about
the salvation of those who lived in His dispensation. He worked out a
perfect Atonement, providing the only acceptable sacrifice that would give us
the opportunity to be freed of our sins and return to live with our
Father above. After the people rejected Him and the Church He established
and caused it to fall, in our day He has established it once again through a
living prophet, exactly as He had always done before. I testify that that
Church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, truly is His. It
is "the only true and living church upon the face of the earth"
(Doctrine and Covenants 1:30), because He stands at it´s head and directs it.
With it, salvation is available to every being who has ever lived upon
the face of this earth. His Kingdom is filling the earth (Daniel 2:44).
This is His work, and there is nothing that brings as much joy as being a
part of it. Something that I have realized here is that there is
something that one can have only through the Gospel and that is peace. By
living the Gospel, it doesn´t mean that we´ll have a burning,
I-want-to-sing-at-the-top-of-my-lungs-for-happiness type of happiness in every
moment, but it does mean that we can always be at peace. Of this I
testify in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
I hope you all have a wonderful week and do
great on your finals and other stuff you may have going on! I love you so
much!
Con mucho amor,
Elder Andrew Nickerl
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